FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ' ALASKA. 29 



special agent of the Treasury Department, in 1872. This calculation is based upon 

 the hypothesis that the breeding seals arc governed in hauling by a common and 

 invariable law of distribution, which is that the area of the rookery ground is 

 directly proportional to the number of seals occupying it. Ho estimates that there 

 is one seal to every 2 S(iuare feet of rookery surface. Hence the problem is reduced 

 to the simple operation of obtaining half the' sum of the superficial area of all the 

 rookeries in square feet. He surveyed these breeding grounds of 1)oth islands in 

 1872 and 1873, when at their greatest limit of expansion, and obtained the following 

 results: Upon St. Paid Island there were 6,060,000 feet of ground, occupied by 

 3,030,000 breeding seals and their young. ()n St. George Island he announced 326,840 

 square feet of superficial rookery area, occupied by 163,420 breeding seals and their 

 young; a total for both islands of 3,193,420 breeding seals and their young. The 

 number of nonbreediug seals cannot be determined in the foregoing manner, as they 

 haul most irregularly, but it seems to ine ju'obable that they are nearly as numerous 

 as the other class. If so, it would give not far from 6,000,000 as the stated number 

 of seals of all kinds which visited the Pribilov Islands during the season of 1872. 



It is likely that these figures are not far from the truth, but I do not think it nec- 

 essary myself to take into consideration the actual number of seals in order to decide 

 the question of how many can be taken each year without injury to the fishery. The 

 law that the size of the rookeries varies directly as the number of seals increases or 

 diminishes seems to me, after close and repeated observation, to be correct. All the 

 rookeries, whether large or small, are uniform in ap}>earance, alike compact, without 

 waste of space, and never crowded. Such being the case, it is unimportant to know 

 the actual number of seals upon the rookei'ies. For any change in the number of 

 seals, which is the point at issue, increases or decreases in size, and the rookeries, 

 taken collectively, will show a corresponding increase or decrease in the number of 

 breeding seals; conseiiuently, changes in the aggregate of pups born annually, upon 

 which the extent and safety of the fisheries depend, can be observed accurately 

 from year to year by following these lines of survey. 



If, then, a plan or map of e'ach rookery l)e made every year, showing accurately 

 its size and form when at its greatest expansion, which is between the 10th and 25th 

 of July, annually, a comparison of this map will give the relative number of the 

 breeding seals as they increase or diminish from year to year. I submit with this 

 report maps of St. Paul and St. George islands, sliowing the extended location of 

 breeding rookeries and hauling grounds upon them. These maps are from surveys 

 made in July, 1874, by Mr. Elliott and myself, and a map of each rookery on both 

 islands drawn from careful surveys made by Mr. Elliott in 1872^ show them now as 

 they were in the season of 1874 as compared with that of 1872. I respectfully rec- 

 ommend that enlarged copies of these latter maps be furnished to the (iovernment 

 agents in charge of the islands, and that they be re(iuired to compare them each 

 year with the respective rookeries, and note what change in size and form, if any, 

 exists upon them. This, if carefully done, will afford data after a time, by which 

 the seal fisheries can be regulated with comparative certainty, so as to produce the 

 greatest revenue to the Government without injury to tliis valuable interest. (Forty- 

 fourth Congress, first session. House Ex. Doc. No. 43, pp. 4, 5.) 



This finished work of 1872-1874: I reproduce in the following maps of 

 the several rookeries of St. Paul Island, and add the hauling" grounds 

 of St. George Island to the original survey of 1874. The smallness of 

 the rookeries on the latter island permits this addition to these charts, 

 but the hauling grounds of St. Paul for 1872-1874 can not be drawn 

 upon so snuill a scale and require a special general map of the entire 

 island itself to properly show them. This map appears under Section 

 II following. The hauling grounds of St. George are so limited in area 

 that a general map of this island to clearly show them would need an 

 immensely enlarged scale. The general position, however, of the 

 St. George rookeries and hauling grounds is clearly defined on my 

 revised map of St. George Island under the head of Section II. 



I pass to a description in detail of each rookery of the Pribilov 

 Islands, giving my first published account of them as they appeared in 

 1872-1874, and each original description is then supplemented by my 

 notes and surveys of last summer. The accompanying maps are so 

 tinted as to exi)ress clearly the status of 1872-1874 as compared with 

 the condition of 1890. ' 



'This combination of the work of 1872-1874 and 1890 upon one chart of each rookery 

 is much better and more satisfactory than to publish the original survey by itself, 

 with a duplicate series of charts for 1890. 



